Why Neil Cross Changed the Gender of a Victim in ‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’
Neil Cross says he changed the gender of the first victim in Luther: The Fallen Sun from a woman to a man after Netflix questioned his initial choice.
The author and screenwriter opened up about the decision in an interview with The Independent, during which he also spoke about why he thinks Luther star Idris Elba would make a great bond and whether he’d do another Luther movie project.
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While addressing the change he made to The Fallen Sun, Cross addressed the ongoing conversation around the small and big screen’s history with violently victimizing women and previous criticism the Luther series faced regarding its portrayals of violence against women. Violence is very much present in Luther’s cinematic debut, with the creator and writer arguing that his universe actually tends to feature violence against men more.
“It’s been mentioned before that people are uncomfortable with the victimization of women in Luther – not unfairly,” he said. “The odd thing, though, is that, if one were to do the maths, there are many, many more male victims in Luther than there are women.”
Still, he admits that there is something more unsettling about the presentation of violence against women — though he declines to pinpoint exactly where that comes from. Instead, when the reporter pointed to ongoing headlines around disproportionate violence against women, Cross responded that “there was very, very little conscious reaction to current events.”
He did, however, acknowledge the difference in audiences’ responses to the gender of a victim ultimately plays into how much a story is able to drum up fear and pushed him to initially make the movie’s first victim a woman. “For reasons I fear to interrogate too deeply, the female victims resonate and scare more deeply,” he explained. “So, there was a defiant part of me in the first draft of this, which was, ‘Oh fuck it — the victim is going to be a woman because that’s more frightening.'”
Despite past criticisms, Cross said it would be the streamer’s pause about the decision that ultimately gave him pause — and convinced him to change the character from a woman to a man.
“That’s the one moment where Netflix said, ‘Do you want to think about this a bit?’ And I did say, ‘Well, it’ll be less scary.’ I worried that it might be,” he recalled. “But actually, they were right.”
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